Well, the weather is really unusual in Seattle this year: June still feels like March. Consequently, my summer sight-seeing plans have suffered a lot. Considering all things including weather, our trips so far have all been far from perfect. In Los Angeles, we broke our camera. In Canada, it rained on two days and we couldn’t go to Whistler at all. Another weekend while Saturday was a scorcher, it rained heavily and consistently on Sunday, thereby adversely affecting our perusal of Historic Columbia Byway. (We still got to see a few beautiful waterfalls though.) Finally, on our visit to the sand dunes on Oregon coast we were met by an unexpectedly strong wind that we couldn’t really spend a lot of time.
But may be I’m just being pessimistic. To view the brighter side of it all, I must say we had pretty good time and enjoyed our little get aways a lot.
In this post, I want to share with you some pictures of the amazing sand dunes and sea lions on the Oregon coast. We took a ride on the dunes in a buggy and it had been a great experience. We had loads of fun at Family Fun Center of Sandland Adventures.
On our way back, we stopped at the Sea Lions Caves, which offered pretty good views of the animals both in the caves and in the ocean. The caves were gorgeous.
The long-awaited Memorial Day weekend brought along rain to the North-West. Despite the bad weather, we set out on our trip to British Columbia, Canada. We basically visited Victoria and Vancouver. Though we couldn’t get to execute our plan to the letter, the trip wasn’t bad.
It was raining hard on Friday afternoon on our way to Canada. Strangely there was no delay at the US-Canada border and we reached Tsawwassen bay well in time for the 7pm ferry to Victoria. The clouds cleared and sun came out. At last. The ferry ride was amazing. The scenery was breath-taking. The little island and mountains on the horizon were splendid to look at. I just couldn’t stop saying “Wow!” again and again for the most part of my presence on the deck. The hour and a half journey had been an awesome experience. We reached the Swartz bay in Victoria just as the Sun was getting ready to set.
The popular Butchart Gardens were our first destination the next day. The one word that came to my mind as I walked through the garden was “enchanting”. I don’t think I ever described anything “enchanting” before. It’s just not any other word for me. I have got a special vision and feeling associated with it, ever since I first encountered it in my English textbook around 15 years ago. It described the gardens that Aladin saw when he went down the mountain cave to retrieve the magic lamp for the evil magician. I was very much enthralled by the depiction of Aladin’s visual treat(he was forbidden to touch anything) that I couldn’t associate the word ‘enchanting’ with anything else. Not until I entered the Butchart Gardens. The beauty seemed ethereal.
Later in the day, we also visited a lesser known Abkhazi Garden. It was cute, small,secluded and, of course, beautiful. Royal Wax Museum turned out to be an interesting attraction. One thing that drew my attention was the presence of Hitler in the Chamber of Horrors section. It displayed the gory wax figures depicting the scenes of physical torture, bloody murders, dead handing by a rope, rats scurrying through the corpse’s flesh and…hope you got the idea! In hindsight, the presence of the greatest human tormentor in the whole (at least recent) history of mankind seemed appropriate in that horror section. But at that moment I wasn’t expecting him.
It was so cold and windy that day but thankfully it didn’t rain. The next day, Vancouver greeted us with the prospect of rain all over it. We visited the famous Capilano Suspension bridge and then moved on to Stanley Park. We were frustrated as we didn’t find a parking spot in the whole park even after taking multiple rounds. At last we had to come out of the park and park the vehicle more than a few blocks away in the downtown. The walk back to the park along the sea wall was pretty. I hoped to avail the shuttle service to navigate the park but I was informed that the service wouldn’t start until June i.e. two days hence. My bad luck. We took the expensive Horse Drawn Carriage tour instead but to my disappointment it covered only a small part of the park. By then, it started drizzling. I was adamant in taking the miniature train ride for the benefit of my son and we could just make it to the last trip.
It was almost 5pm and we were tired and a little disheartened by our inability to cover more points in the park. And the prospect of walking back all the way back to the car loomed like a daunting task. My husband and I got into a heated argument as to which path to take and I grudgingly gave in to him at the end. That actually saved our day. My husband wanted to take the main road and we reached a point where the footpath ended abruptly and didn’t know what to do. At that moment, as if god sent, a school bus stopped by and gave us a ride to the downtown. God bless the driver!
Encouraged by this good turn of events, we decided to stop by at Chinese Garden before heading back to the hotel. Dr. Sun Ye-Sen Classical Chinese Garden was impressive. I must say, the best thing of the trip happened at this place. Before exiting the garden we visited the gift shop and were just looking around. Naturally, I walked toward the books. My family followed me and guess what! My son demanded to get a book for him. I was so pleasantly surprised. To give you a brief context to the significance of this event – I have been trying for so long to read to my son and actually engage him and to make him enjoy reading books. He always has been impatient to wait for me to finish reading before he turns the page to look at the pictures on the next page.It has always been an effort for me to make him spend more than a few minutes on any book. And he has a tendency to handle books roughly and seems to take pleasure in ripping or tearing the pages off. So, you can guess my joy at hearing my son actually asking for a book. We got him one, brushing aside our skepticism about his motives and sincerity. But his need turned out to be genuine. He made me read the story again and again numerous time in the next few days. He really enjoyed it. And me too!
Sadly, the rain continued to the next day and we didn’t know what to do. We just drove through downtown for a while and went to Canada Place. It’s a ferry terminal and convention center. It offered good views, as much as a cloudy day can allow. Just as we were thinking to return to Seattle, the rain stopped. We had lunch and then got to see the beautiful Vandusen Botanical Gardens before we headed back to home.
My conviction that gardens are most beautiful when wet has been made stronger by this trip. Almost always when we visit a new beautiful place, we vow to come back in future to take in more of its sights. It was no different this time too. But much to our chagrin , we almost always never go back. What to do, there are many other unexplored beautiful places out there awaiting our arrival.
One thing that struck me about Canada is that – it ‘s so peaceful. There are less people. It felt like a get away destination. Victoria seemed a good place to retire. And yeah, there were totem poles everywhere.
All in all, the trip was good. There is so much more I can write about my experiences but I guess this will suffice for now.
I’ve been to Yellowstone National Park this long weekend (Memorial day weekend). It is the first national park of America. It is well known for its geysers, hot springs and wilderness. It’s a huge park (around 9000 sq km) and offers wide range of breathtaking landscape – beautiful lakes, rivers/creeks, mountain ranges, valleys etc.
Everyone who has been there says that one needs at least a week to enjoy the park (there is no maximum limit, though) and at least 3 days in order to cover the top attractions. We had only a day and half to spend inside the park as the rest of the weekend was taken by the long drive to the park from Seattle (12 hours).
Since we are not into any activities like fishing, hiking, camping etc, we could cover considerable number of attractions in that short time. Nevertheless, we felt that 2 full days would have been better.
Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday, the day inside the park, was bad – it was so cloudy in the morning and it rained from the afternoon. Despite the bad weather and short time and other inconveniences, misjudgments etc, it was a good trip.
Note: I gracefully admit my defeat and stop trying to describe the beauty of the nature’s wonders in words. I let my pictures do the job.
Montana Landscape
Even long before we reached the park, the drive in Montana on I-90 was spectacular, especially the Pintler Scenic Loop part.
Our first stop in the park was at Mammoth Hot Springs near the North Entrance. We absolutely loved it. It’s gorgeous!
Mammoth Hot Springs
Oh, I forgot to mention: We saw a couple of Mountain Goats on the way to Hot Springs.
Cistern Spring
Our next stop was at Norris Geyser Basin. It was beautiful too. We reached there at dusk just before the sunset and it gave us a memorable experience.
On Sunday, a few Bison greeted us soon after we entered the park (through West entrance).
Fountain Paint Pots
Our first destination that day was Lower Geyser Basin. There we have seen a few fountain paint pots in addition to many geysers.
Firehole river flowed beside this basin, which added to the kaleidoscope.
We loved the Excelsior geyser, with its crater.
Besides a few geysers, Midway basin also consisted of a few colorful springs.
Old Faithful is the most reliable geyser, and hence the most popular, with eruptions spaced around 90 minutes apart.
Watch the eruption below:
Old Faithful Lodge
We also took a quick peek into The Old Faithful lodge nearby. It’s a wooden structure built in 1920′s and looks great. We just walked around a bit and spent a few minutes at the Cafeteria inside.
I think the next destination was West Thumb Geyser Basin. Here we could see a herd of deer. More than the geysers (By this time geysers no more excited us), the view of the massive Yellowstone lake was magnificent.
After we left that point, we saw an Elk by the roadside. It sat calmly as if posing for a photo session, while people were clicking their cameras at it.
We drove along the Yellowstone Lake for around 20 miles.
Some part of the lake was frozen and we paused at a few viewpoints to take in its beauty.
Frozen Yellowstone Lake
Dragon's Mouth Spring
The clouds darkened when we were on the way to Mud Volcano and they broke into steady rain while we were sneaking up to the Volcano and Dragon’s Mouth Spring.
Bison in Hayden Valley
After that we drove along side Hayden Valley and caught sight of a few bison on the way. By that time I had enough of bison and was hoping to see some other species – but not much luck.
Our next stop was the highlight of the park – Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It’s stunning. It’s supposedly much smaller than the Grand Canyon of Arizona, which is one of the World’s top attractions. I haven’t been to Arizona canyon ,so this is my first experience with a canyon.
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
Tower Fall
We ended the day by taking a look at Tower Fall. We couldn’t go down the trail to the base of the falls, as it was already 8 pm and there were no people around. I was afraid, lest any animal attacks me..
The drive to the Tower Falls from the Grand Canyon was very good – actually a little frightening too as we were driving to the edge of the cliff at a very high altitude (around 10,000 ft). There is still lot of snow in the park.
While we were leaving the park, we saw a herd of bison, which are running and playing. It was quite a sight. There were a couple of baby bison too.
Talking about animals, we might have seen some wild buffalos too. It’s a bit difficult to distinguish between bison and buffalo from a distance.
This sounds like a really good trip. Isn’t it? But I have my own list of disappointments and disasters:
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!
-- From "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster
Quote Zone
People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
While most of the stuff you would find in this blog is my personal reflections, I occasionally quote from the books I read and from other online sources (the fact that I usually make sure to mention in the post). If anyone finds it as a violation of the copyright law or detect the absence of reference to a source, please let me know so that I can take the appropriate action. Thank you!
My husband wanted to take the main road and we reached a point where the footpath ended abruptly and didn’t know what to do. At that moment, as if god sent, a school bus stopped by and gave us a ride to the downtown. God bless the driver!
